


Real

by acornsandravens



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 18:24:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acornsandravens/pseuds/acornsandravens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TV Canon. Gendry opens up about what happened at Dragonstone. Arya helps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Real

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through Season 3. Characters are aged up in a nonspecific sort of way. One-shot? If you notice any mistakes or typos please let me know. Con-crit is okay, but be gentle! This is my first time sharing anything I've written. Characters and ASOIAF universe belong to GRRM, not me!

It wasn’t the ale that made him talk about it, he didn’t think. He wasn’t drunk. He just felt warm and happy and content sitting next to her, with the fires of the forge burning and the chill spring evening kept out by the shutters.

“You never told me how you got away from her,” Arya said, studying the bottom of her cup, “the Red Woman.”

His wrists ached at the mention of her name, like he was still strapped to that featherbed in Dragonstone.

“I didn’t get away. I was broken out of the dungeons by a knight, one of Stannis’ men." Kind, honorable Ser Davos the Onion Knight. He hoped he hadn't cost the man the rest of his fingers. If he wasn’t such a coward he would have tried to find out.

"I don’t know what happened to him after he put me on that boat. He might have burned in her fires for helping me.” He admitted.

“I was going to rescue you, you know.” she said, a sad smile at her own youthful folly. “Just as soon as I could get a sword, maybe one of Anguy’s bows and a horse. Only before I could, The Twins happened and I… couldn’t.”

At the mention of The Twins she got that faraway look in her eyes, the grief still etched plainly on her face even after all the years that had passed.

He knew the blood she had spilled hadn’t erased the pain like she had thought it would.

“I wondered about you, when I was in Braavos and wasn’t allowed to even think my own name. I thought you were dead.” she admitted.

“S’okay. She didn’t kill me, that’s what matters.” That’s what he had told himself, in the cell, and with every stroke of the oars.

It was stupid, though, the way it felt sometimes like she had.

Arya nodded, and they both stared into the fire, thinking of all the things that should have killed them and hadn’t. All the things they should have killed but didn’t.

“She hurt you, didn’t she?” she asked, and then rushed on “In Braavos you hear the stories about blood magic every day. They aren’t ever good stories. Everyone knows what R’hllor wants.”

_Hurt_. Physically the leeches hadn’t been that painful, not even when she pulled them off, and the wounds they left had healed in days. He had been bound in leather, not iron. Pulling against the restraints hadn’t so much as bruised.

Yet sometimes he still woke up yelling and fighting, sheets stuck to his skin with sweat. Did that qualify as hurt?

“She didn’t do anything I didn’t deserve. I was stupid.”

_Naïve, stupid, gullible_. Every woman he looked at seemed to have her eyes, her cold, dead eyes. He could still feel the twist of pleasure in his groin when she had slid off that red robe, smell the incense and taste the wine. Mostly he just felt the wonder slipping away and turning into horror when she had bound him to the bed and taken his blood.

“That’s not true.” He was surprised at the anger in her voice. “You didn’t choose to go with her. It wasn’t your choice, Gendry.”

“I felt like I was willing.” He whispered. He had been hard for her, eager to touch her. For a moment in that blood red room he would have given anything to be touched by someone who wanted him. He’d known precious few moments in his life.

And so the whole story spilled out, even the parts he had never thought to tell anyone.

Arya was a woman grown. She didn’t blush when he talked of the almost bedding, of how his hands had felt on the Red Woman’s tits or how ashamed he had been when Stannis and Ser Davos had come into the room when his cock was still hard against his thigh and he was screaming for help. And she didn’t tell him it served him right to end up in the dungeons when he had been reaching above his station. She listened.

_It’s the real thing or it’s not._

Arya’s hands were gentle as she cupped his jaw. Her eyes were warm and grey and alive, somehow, after all they'd seen. He swore there was a tear there for him. He didn’t know if he wanted pity and he didn’t care- if there were two people in the world who deserved to pity one another, it was the two of them and their sad lot.

Her hands didn’t make him flinch away, even when she brushed his hair out of his face or laced their fingers together. It felt right. He finally felt right. When he kissed her she tasted of ale, not wine. She smelled like snow on the wind, not of smoke, and she didn’t take anything from him. She gave because she loved him, and because he needed it.

This time there was no moment of panic when the trick was revealed and the bonds tightened. There was only her, warm and slick and gasping, naked on his furs. He looked upon her face- only hers- when he took her maidenhead, and it was his name on her lips when she shuddered and cried out for him, for _Gendry_.


End file.
